Text 4.96

भेदास् तद् एक-पञ्चाशत् ॥ ४.४३c ॥

bhedās tad eka-pañcāśat || 4.43c ||

Consequently there are fifty-one varieties of dhvanis.

pūrva-gaṇitāḥ pañcatriṃśat, artha-śakty-utthāḥ prabandha-gatā dvādaśa, rasādi-dhvanayas tu padāṃśādi-gatāś catvāra ity eka-pañcāśad-uttama-kāvya-bhedāḥ. ete śuddhāḥ.

Thirty-five varieties of dhvanis were enumerated earlier (4.84). In a prabandha, there are twelve dhvanis arisen from artha-śakti (4.85). However, the rasādi-dhvanis beginning from padāṃśa-gata are of four kinds (padāṃśa-gata, varṇa-gata, racanā-gata, and prabandha-gata). Thus there are fifty-one kinds of first-rate poetry. These are pure varieties (single).

Commentary:

The fifty-one types of dhvanis are as follows: The two basic kinds of avivakṣita-vācya dhvani (arthāntara-saṅkramita-vācya and atyanta-tiraskṛta-vācya) are either pada-gata or vākya-gata, for a total of four.

The vivakṣitānya-para-vācya dhvani (abhidhā-mūla) has two subvarieties: asaṃlakṣya-krama (rasādi) and saṃlakṣya-krama (vastu and alaṅkāra).

There are six kinds of asaṃlakṣya-krama dhvanis: pada-gata (based on one declined word), vākya-gata (based one or more sentences), padāṃśa-gata (based on an aspect of a word), varṇa-gata (based on the phonemes), racanā-gata (based on the style of compounding), and prabandha-gata (based on the short-story).

There are three main varieties of saṃlakṣya-krama dhvanis, (1) śabda-śakti-bhū dhvani has two basic categories: vastu and alaṅkāra, and each one is either pada-gata or vākya-gata, for a total of four, (2) artha-śakti-bhū has twelve basic categories (4.62), and each one is either pada-gata, vākya-gata or prabandha-gata, for a total of thirty-six, and (3) there is only one kind of ubhaya-śakti-bhū dhvani (vākya-gata alaṅkāra-dhvani) (4.75).

More varieties are possible. Ānandavardhana said the varieties of dhvanis are uncountable.^[1]

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

anantā hi dhvaneḥ prakārāḥ sahṛdayānāṃ vyutpattaye teṣāṃ diṅ-mātraṃ kathitam (Dhvanyāloka 3.44).